


Once Upon A Time, 2

by Xie



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 17:59:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xie/pseuds/Xie
Summary: Sometimes Justin thinks about things...





	Once Upon A Time, 2

  
  
**Once Upon a Time, 2**  
By Xie  
  
It isn't like I've never thought about it. What my life would be like, or will be like, with Brian gone. He's twelve years older than I am. He's had cancer. His father died of lung cancer at sixty.  
  
To say Brian takes care of himself, drives carefully, gets plenty of sleep, and eats well would make anyone who knew him laugh until they hurt themselves. Although if going to the gym, regarding every bite of food you eat with intense suspicion, and fucking without holding anything back can keep you young, well, Brian will live forever.  
  
Most of the time, I can't picture Brian at 92. But now and then, I imagine we'll be lying next to each other in the old folks home and Brian will turn to me and say, "You're only 80, you could have anyone you want, there are no locks on our doors." I'll just look at him the same way I did when I was 17, or 20, or 35, and wonder if he means it, or if it's just a habit, a way to placate the fates.  
  
Because I see him watching me sometimes, when he thinks I'm not. I know he fully expects me to vanish into the mists one day. I can't do anything about that except not do it.  
  
I know I've almost died on him once. Literally. Even though I don't remember anything about it. But I do remember the look on his face, the break in his voice, when he found me at Babylon after the bombing. I thought, this is the reality, Brian. The thing I knew when I was a kid, the thing I knew when you got sick, the thing you're so afraid of: that love brings pain. Well, it does.  
  
Sometimes, when I watch Brian sleeping, I wonder what it would be like to be alone, with him gone. I assume some day I'll know. I wonder if it will be like he was on a business trip, but one he just never comes back from. Or if it'll be like when I was in LA, or New York, and we mostly just talked on the phone. Will I talk to Brian in my head, and feel him in my heart, and miss him only at night, when I fall asleep without him?  
  
Or will it be like someone pulled my heart out of my body and cut a piece of it away, and then put it back?  
  
I wonder.  
  
I think it will be like this: One day I'll wake up, and Brian won't.  
  
And I won't die, and I won't stop living, because that's not who I am. But I can tell you one thing: wherever we go when it's over, I plan on walking in with the mists all around me, and a light glowing overhead, and angels singing, and Brian Kinney smiling at me from across the street.  
  
I'll never tell him, though. For one thing, he'd give me that pained look he gets when I say something maudlin or romantic.  
  
But the real reason I'll never tell him? I'm pretty sure he already knows.


End file.
